Web casting - hooking up with a powerful medium

A web cast uses the technology of funneling digital streams of information through the Internet to produce a live broadcast. In principle a web cast allows a user to connect to a high bandwidth server which then relays or distributes the web cast to the intended subscribers or viewers. As the transmission speeds of cable, satellite and broadband continue to increase, so web cast streams will become of ever higher quality and lower cost until it is virtually impossible for the naked eye to distinguish its quality from that of traditional television broadcasting. The only crucial difference is that now the individual model or journalist who has become the broadcaster rather than a corporation. With this quantum change a level of censorship disappears, the patronage of the networks is reduced to that of open market competition, and the individual is newly empowered as the director, star and producer of his or her own private show. Although early web casts were non-interactive, that is to say that the viewer did not contribute to the content of the web cast or interact with its ‘stars’, the technology of web casting has since merged with video conferencing to make this possible, most notably within the adult industry.

Making web casting pay

As with most technical innovations on the Internet, they are developed within the adult industry and then mysteriously diffuse into mainstream corporate thinking. One of the biggest questions in the Internet industry is how to make streaming media such as web casting or movie files pay dividends. It was not only the content producers, such as MSN and Danni’s Hard Drive, but also the suppliers of web casting software and hardware who had to find a solution that turned a stream of MegaBytes into a flow of hard currency. Streaming media is an expensive business due to the expensive hardware and advanced software which it incorporates, not to mention the costly provision of broadband networks and high bandwidths. So how do you make your web casting earn rate faster than your burn rate?

The first objective is to gain a sizeable share of a niche market, as there are already hundreds of major broadcasters who provide a service for the generic mass markets. Two major models of income generation are currently favoured by web casters, namely subscription and pay-per-view. Market pioneer Danni Ashe, the driving force behind the adult industry’s trailblazer Danni’s Hard Drive, believes that the key to success in the subscription model is to create and to provide as much original content as possible. Danni Ashe started her adult empire in 1995 from only a minimal capital outlay, and today enjoys a profitable on-line business with major streaming components and a world-wide following. The pay-per-view model also dove-tails in neatly with a basic subscription model, and many leading models and adult Internet companies, including Playboy and Danni’s Hard Drive, actively charge for both. Miss Ashe herself believes in a lower subscription rate to create a larger demand for a given product, but defines her primary marketing strategy as ‘satisfying a specific audience with targeted content’.

At this juncture, many web publishers have lost confidence in business models which are based exclusively upon banner or pop-up advertising, and affiliate schemes largely rely upon a level trust that often wears thin. However, in defence of the advertising model, the advent of new technologies allows precisely targeted advertising within audio and video streams, as well as lucrative opportunities for product placement within clickable video or web casting productions.

Another key issue is live vs recorded web casting content. The success of web casts such as the Naked News, Live 8, and Victoria Secret suggest that, if well marketed, a live event can rise above the white noise of the Internet to achieve commercial success. This model has already been applied to overseas broadcasting of football games and other events which, although popular, do not meet mainstream viewing targets. Doubtless it will not be long before the Miss World pageant is broadcast live exclusively by web cast. However, live web casts can be prohibitively expensive if they draw too small an audience during their “live” broadcast period. In contrast the TiVo model of ‘On-demand’ video provides the potential to draw larger cumulative ratings at a lower cost, with a reduced peak bandwidth, and with far less risk. As is often the case, those who walk their talk often have the final word, and Danni Ashe stresses the importance of building a reputable content offering before investing heavily on marketing.

Movements in the Adult Industry

The adult industry seems to drive almost all technological innovation on the Internet, and where the adult industry leads, so the mainstream follows. So what are the latest developments destined for our entertainment? Last month Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) introduced the concept of pay-per-minute broadcasting as high speed broadband and low cost storage threaten to consign the DVD to history. One company at the forefront of this latest revolution to turn your PC into a TV is National A-1 Internet Inc, which has for the past few years streamed both family and adult movie content from its web sites using a pay-per-minute model. As National A1 and IPTV expand to become mainstream service providers so other cable and satellite broadcasters will follow suit. Web sites providing pay-per-minute broadcasting currently stream over half a million minutes of content per day, and once such company, hotmovies.com, charges as much as 10 cents per minute. Already this rapidly growing pay-per-minute broadcasting sector is generating revenues in excess of $20 million per year.

Danni’s Hard drive has come to be revered within the industry, not only because it has survived two dotcom crashes and pioneered new ideas and technology, but also because Danni Ashe’s Company has become the market barometer. Launched in July 1995, Danni’s Hard Drive expanded to a $7 million operation by 2001 with over 40 employees. These days Miss Ashe enjoys her status as a business icon, although she has become somewhat more elusive as to just how successful her statistics have become...

Icqurimage were fortunate to obtain some insights from another leading lady of the web casting phenomenon, Kim Chambers. A blue-eyed, blonde-haired model and videographer, Kim Chambers is a top fitness model and adult film star who presently resides in California. Kim runs the leading web sites www.kimflex.com and www.kimchambers.com, and has gathered a wealth of experience in web casting. Kim shared her wisdom in an interview with Icqurimage:

What advantages you obtain from live web casting?

“Live web-casting gives me the opportunity to get know my fans better. We get enjoy and fulfil more fantasies by spending time on line. Every week I get to chat and show off my body to all the members of www.kimflex.com and www.kimchambers.com, and they love it. Often I receive requests on what they want to see, and I love that because it makes me feel that they are happy by watching what they desire. It’s my goal to make they enjoy every minute they spend with me.”

How effective is web casting for you as a tool, and how many people tune in to your live web casts?

“Web casting makes my life much more interesting because not only my fans get to know me better I get to know what is that they like to experience. So web casting is a great tool, I don't count how many fans tune in every week - it can be from 1 to 200 and I do the same show for them all, if only one fan would tune in I will all my best just as if there were a thousand of them. My fans are my number one priority, without them my life would be boring.”

How easy do you find it?

“KimChambers.com [I] was one of the first models to have web casting. My entire house was wired and fans could watch me all day and all night, at the time it was hard to acquire because it was not so widely known, but now the demand for it has increase so much, that by just entering a search on google.com you can find millions of providers.”

Are there any drawbacks or costs to having a live web cast from your site?

“The cost of having web casting is minimal in comparison to what I get back. My fans get to see me weekly and I get to chat with them, it makes my life so much more fun and of course keeps my site more personal when it comes to getting to know the models and see what I am involved in. Just last month they got to see how my company shot our first porno of the year, and my fans were logged on for about 6 hours enjoying the process of the making of porn. We all had so much fun!”

Getting into web casting

As a model, lecturer or specialist, you may feel that you have some interesting content that you wish to make available to a niche audience which currently remains unsatisfied. This might be a group of fans with an interest in a popular model, specialists who find the science of telecommunications fascinating, or simply those who yearn to re-live the days of their ΑΔΦ Frat parties (Please note that this name was randomly chosen so no offence should be taken if there are any ΑΔΦ members out there!) So how do you get started in web casting, what needs to be done, and how much is it all going to cost you?

There are many variants within multi-media web casting. The first is the Live Web cast which may take the form of a fashion show, a premiere, a model unveiling, a sex scene, a party, or an analyst’s meeting. Such web casts are broadcast in real time. In contrast an ‘archived web cast’ is broadcast after being pre-recorded to reach those who may have been unavailable at the time of production, as is the case with most modern television broadcasting. ‘Stand-alone’ web casts are deposited as an ad or within an archive, for example a news event. The final category, Interactive web casting, stretches to the limits of available technology. Interactive web casting collects information feeds from its audience and combines the information with surveys, feedback and opinions to optimise its content and such broadcast parameters as the optimal show time or bandwidth.

As discussed above, broadcasting to an audience which is disinterested or absent may prove expensive. As with any good marketing exercise, you should first establish the objectives of the advertising campaign for your web cast. What is your target market? What are the age range, gender, professional occupation and disposable incomes of your intended market? Are they comfortable with micropayments or credit cards, or would they rather pay a direct debit from a bank account? What are the interests of your target market? Do they prefer glamour, elegance, cars, travel, or do they simply like it delivered ‘real’? This information may be gathered using feedback from direct mailing campaigns or from your web site.

Ensure that any advertising communications you put out are both objective and effective. Direct marketing is often best, but you should also build up a subscriber mailing list from your web site, Yahoo groups and web site links. The branding of your campaign should reflect the product you are selling, and generating bad feeling from misled customers is not likely to be a successful long-term policy. Direct mailing lists may be worth their weight in gold and may be bought from companies in equivalent or related industries. For example if you wanted to create a time share dating agency, the mailing lists of time share vendors might be a good starting point. Remember that it’s not considered spam if the mailing list contains your Company contact details, accurate information, and above all is relevant to the individual receiving the E-mail. A Beatles fan receiving an E-mail advertising signed Beatles’ memorabilia would not be offended if he received such useful information, although those who have no such interest would rightly regard the communication as being unsolicited spam.

Feedback is essential within any successful marketing campaign. Send a direct mail campaign, and if you generate a response rate of 1% and a take up rate of only 0.1%, then your campaign would not be effective unless your product was of high margin and value. Measurements of a successful implementation include high peak visitor rates, a flurry of Mails, a good click-through rate, extensive comment, positive criticism and completed surveys. The head in the sand approach is suicidal, and a good business person takes negative feedback objectively and seriously.

Define your budget. An advertising campaign must more than pay for itself. Turnover is vanity, and only profit is sanity. Large turnovers require more time, more capital investment and more infrastructure to satisfy the demand. Remember that turnover minus profit equals financial noise (just as profit = margin x volume). Separate your advertising campaigns in real time to ensure that the feedback you get is from a particular campaign! Return on investment is critical. Consider a range of marketing options that includes direct mailing, radio, links, and click-through banners, and of course specialist magazines are always a good means of reaching a niche market.

Determine whether your web cast is targeted at a specific general sector of the market, or whether it is by invitation only. The size of the web cast audience determines the number and the bandwidth of the servers that you will employ, and obviously some flexibility must be built into the system to cover all eventualities. Remember Victoria Secret’s first live web cast of its lingerie show crashed the servers due to unanticipated demand! Will your web cast be paid for by subscription or by pay-per-view, and if it is not intended for a general audience will it be password protected?

Ensure that your web cast is compatible with Firefox and Netscape browsers as well as Internet Explorer. It might be the case that your target market may also disproportionately favour Firefox or another open source browser. Make sure that the target audience has the necessary software to view your web cast in advance of the broadcast. Use icons to make sure that they have downloaded the latest versions of the appropriate plug-ins or media players. The media player that you select for your audience should be a popular one such as Quicktime, RealPlayer or Windows Media Player.

Will your web cast contain advertising? Will this be within an intro or an interval? Short web casts are cheaper and as are smaller bandwidths of delivery. Calculate your bandwidth requirement and cost per 100 viewers. Streaming at 100 kbps to 1,000 consumers for 10 minutes equates to 60,000 Mbps which may cost as little as $15 or much more depending on server volume. Do your servers or your customers’ Internet connections have the capacity to handle the predicted bandwidth? Will your web cast contain interactive elements such as surveys, click-throughs to your web site, chat, voting, and messaging?

There are a range of web cast producers and servers to suit all pockets and requirements from the up market www.bluetuna.tv to www.AudioVideoweb.com and www.webcast2000.com. There are many techniques to optimise your webcast, such as inviting members of your target audience to attend the webcast, and by advertising the time, date, support contacts and technical requirements well in advance of the show. Why not use press releases, Ezines and news groups to advertise your ‘event’?

A webcast production may take days, weeks, or even months depending upon its technical complexity and the number of participants. Simple technology often goes down well in web casting and old digital camcorders are readily reassigned for the purpose. Ensure that your final production is digitised, compressed and encoded for delivery to your webcast server. Obviously the more live the webcast is, the more complex the operation will be! For every pleasure a thousand pains...!